Testing ssd. How to check the speed of a hard drive - we test HDD and SSD drives. What is SSD-boost or flashcache

In the last article on the site, we looked at a utility that informs about all the data on a computer’s hard drive. In this article we will get acquainted with a related utility (the programs have the same developer) - CrystalDiskMark. It is designed to measure the performance of hard drives.

1. About CrystalDiskMark

Program for Windows CrystalDiskMark is able to measure the average speed of reading and writing data from conventional hard drives with magnetic platters, both external and connected via USB, SSD drives and flash drives. Unlike many analogue programs, CrystalDiskMark allows you to determine the read and write speeds of individual disk partitions.

CrystalDiskMark is a free, multilingual program that has no functionality other than testing the performance of hard drives.

You can download CrystalDiskMark on the developer’s website. The program is presented in regular version, requiring installation, and a portable version. CrystalDiskMark Shizuku Editions are versions with a program background in the style of Japanese anime.

If CrystalDiskMark is selected in the normal version, which requires installation, you must carefully monitor the installation process so as not to install unnecessary software into the system along the way.

2. Testing hard drives

After launching the program, we will see a small window in the form of a table of values. The last cell of the row at the top allows you to select a specific disk partition or connected device (flash drive, USB-HDD, USB-SSD).

The cells to the left are cycles of reading and writing a reference file with a certain size, which the program will temporarily place on the disk partition or device being tested. The number of cycles of 5 with a file size of 1000 MB, set in the program by default, can be left for regular HDD hard drives.

To avoid unnecessary wear and tear on the SSD drive, when testing it, it is recommended to reduce the number of cycles to 3 with a file size of 100 MB.

Select the disk partition to be tested or a connected USB device and start the process of measuring the speed of reading and writing data with the “ All».

« All" - as we can see from the name, this is the launch of all the data reading and writing tests presented below. They can also be launched individually with the corresponding button:

• « Seq» - testing of sequential data reading and writing starts;
• « 512K» - testing of random reading and writing of blocks, the size of which is 512 KB, starts;
• « 4K» - testing of random reading and writing of blocks is started, the size of which is 4 KB with a queue depth of 1;
• « 4K QD32"- starts testing random reading and writing of blocks, the size of which is 4 KB with a queue depth of 32.

Of all these individual tests, in the grand scheme of things, the only thing that matters is “ Seq" It is the sequential measurement of reading and writing data that is considered an indicative parameter, since it is precisely its values ​​that manufacturers indicate in the characteristics of storage media. And if the purpose of measuring the performance of a new hard drive or flash drive is to check whether the manufacturer or seller lied, promising better speed indicators, you can only run testing " Seq».

After a short test in the CrystalDiskMark table we will see the average speed of the hard drive - in the cells of the column “ Read"data reading speed, and in the cells of the column " Write", respectively, the speed of their recording.

3. Other program functionality

CrystalDiskMark allows you to copy test results into text format. Saved in text file Testing data can be used for analysis and comparison in the future.

The CrystalDiskMark program provides the ability to increase the scale of its window, as well as change the colors of the interface.

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Nowadays, disk subsystems are being modernized at an accelerated pace in almost all hosters. Solid state drives have become a significant breakthrough in improving computer performance, including server equipment. The fact is that the disk has been a bottleneck for many years, which is called “ weak link", in the performance of any information systems. In other words, all other components - the processor, RAM, system buses and even the network - everything has long been much faster and more productive than drives. SSD gives an increase in the performance of any device by about 3-5 times. This means any applications will launch several times faster, sometimes even tens of times faster.

So, the hoster offers you two tariff lines - SSD and non_SSD. You, of course, take an SSD. But how can you be sure that the hoster really issued the SSD? After all, there is no difference for the operation of the site - everything will work on your hosting with any disk. That is, theoretically, the hoster can tell you that it has servers on fast solid-state drives. But in reality, sell capacity on ordinary traditional HDDs. And you most likely won't even know about it.

After all, SSDs are much more expensive than regular disks. But hosters have serious power, they need to store terabytes of data. Can you imagine how much such systems can cost, considering that 1 GB solid state drive about 10 times more expensive than a 1 GB regular disk?

What is SSD-boost or flashcache?

In general, there is a hybrid system. When using a combination of SSD + HDD. At the same time, all data is stored on traditional large disks. There is special software that configures these disks into a special cunning array, where the SSD acts as a cache for any data that is written or read. In such an array we have a small SSD, say 120 GB, and behind it a large HDD, 2 TB. This combination gives read/write speeds like an SSD, but the volume like an HDD. That's it. At the same time, the hoster can easily tell you that everything is on an SSD. Honest hosters call this SSD-boost. This does not negatively affect the operation of the sites.

I checked the disk speed of dozens of different hosters. You will be surprised, but only 1 out of 5 hosters provides an “honest” SSD.

I record such things with screenshots.

Tests of fake SSDs of some hosters

Hoster No. 1

Here we see only 30 MB/s per write. This is normal speed for a regular HDD. But the hoster declares it as an SSD.

Hoster No. 2

A similar picture. But the reading speed is already a little better. Perhaps this is the case with flashcache, but it is very overloaded. But most likely it's just raid array from regular HDDs. You can assemble them in such a way that the reading performance increases by 1.5-2 times.

Hoster No. 3

A favorite hoster for many. Shows generally wild results. Not only is the HDD, it is also overloaded with disk accesses.

Hoster No. 4

This is actually a funny story. I did a server audit for a client and there were complaints about the brakes. Let me check the disk, I think.

This is the picture. I write to the client this way and that - the hoster is blatantly deceiving you. The client runs to support - it turns out that it really is. The client “forgot” to turn on the SSD when switching from tariff to tariff, do you understand? We switch, test again and see how a real SSD appeared.

Tests of real SSDs

Now, to understand the difference, I will show you screenshots of tests of an actual SSD.

This is what it looks like. The recording speed should be over 100 Mb/s. This is the minimum for an SSD. This is a test from my work laptop, on which I am currently writing this post. It contains the cheapest 120 Gb SSD. As you can see, its operating speed is 4-5 times faster than a traditional disk.

And here is a test of a hoster that provides a real SSD.

This is definitely a real SSD. This is how it should be. Perhaps the boost is configured, but it’s an SSD and you can live with this hoster.

How to do a disk speed test with a hoster?

I use the dd utility for this. It is available in any Linux. But you should handle it carefully, otherwise there is a risk of ruining the entire server and all the data on it. Because this utility writes raw data to any device or file that you specify to it.

So, for a write test, you should take a stream of zeros from the special device /dev/zero and send it to a file on the disk under test. Any arbitrary file. For example, in the temporary files folder /tmp/test.img

Dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.img bs=1M count=1024 oflag=dsync

This command will create a 1 GB file and display the write speed.

You can immediately check the reading speed, only here the if option should point to the created file, and the of option should point somewhere into the void. In Linux there is such a device /dev/null , let’s point it to it:

Dd if=/tmp/test.img of=/dev/null bs=1M count=1024

But before that, you need to reset the disk cache, otherwise the file will be read in a second, and you will get the reading speed in Gb/s. This is done with the following command:

Sysctl vm.drop_caches=3

Then we conduct a reading test with the second team.

Well, when finished, you need to delete the test file so that it doesn’t take up space:

Rm -f /tmp/test.img

This will all work only on a dedicated server or VPS. Moreover, not on every VPS. Because they also differ in virtualization technology. Many hosters do not provide full virtualization (KVM, XEN) but containers (openVZ). There is no access to kernel parameters, which means you won’t be able to reset the cache. You will have to read and write in different files, or before the read test, wait several hours until the disk cache is overwritten with other data. It's also quite difficult to test the speed on shared hosting since you don't have root access. But the dd utility is usually available to any system user, so you can check it on it too, with SSH access.

But there is a direct dependence on the performance and speed of the entire computer. The speed of loading the OS, launching programs, copying files, exchanging data, and more depends on it.

This utility performs a hard drive speed test in this order.

• In the program window, select the number of write and read cycles. 5 is optimal.
• Specify the file size, 1 GIB is recommended.
• Select your hard drive letter (C:).

Setting up CrystalDiskMark

• Click the "All" button to begin testing.

The program will show the speed of the hard drive - reading information, it will be in column 1 - Read. In the second column you will see the write speed to the hard drive. For an SSD, 400 Mb/s is considered optimal if connected via SATA3.

To save the performance test results, take a screenshot or select “Copy test results” in the “Edit” menu; a text report will be automatically created.

AS SSD Benchmark

An excellent utility that allows you to easily and quickly test your hard drive. There is no need to install the utility. It should be used according to the same algorithm as in the utility described above.

A program that performs a hard drive test. It has a free version and a paid version (Pro). The paid version without registration has a demo period of 15 days.

• Launch the program.
• Go to the “Benchmark” tab, select the mode in which the test will be performed: “Write” or “Read”.

• If your computer has several hard drives, select the one you want to check.
• Click "Start" to start the scan.

After completing the test, the program will show the results in numbers and graphs. You will learn the following data transfer rates:

• Minimum - the smallest;
• Maximum - the largest (usually this is what manufacturers say);
• RateAverage - average;
• BurstRate - peak (often given as real speed, but under normal conditions this is not always achieved);
• CPUUsage - loading central processor during testing.

After running the test and learning the results, you will probably wonder how to increase the speed of data exchange with the disk. After all, if the speed of data exchange with the disk decreases, and there can be many reasons for this, you need to make the computer act faster. There are several ways to speed up the performance of the storage device.

• Defragmentation.
• Cleaning up registry errors and junk.
• Archiving rarely used files.
• Using a program that will detect violations of the partition structure and then correct it - Rat.

Now you can find out what the actual speed of your hard drive is, compare it with what the manufacturer claims, and how to increase it. This information will certainly help you, optimize your work on your computer, and help analyze the performance of your hard drive and improve it.

Completed extensive testing new version another of its products intended for testing hard drives and other drives called CrystalDiskMark. This is another representative of the Crystal family of utilities and tests, however, focused strictly on a single goal. Allows you to measure the speed of various operations, namely copying and writing user-defined blocks on certain drive partitions in an operating environment Windows systems.

WD1500AHFD (Raptor X)

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Samsung SP2504C

The test cannot serve as a standard, especially since the principle of its operation is somewhat different from other known solutions, but to compare the speed of operation hard drive On approximately the same systems it will be quite suitable. At least it catches the difference between the WD Raptor X and the Samsung SP2504C. The program works in all versions of Windows operating systems, from 9x to Vista/7 with x64 architecture.

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The third release added the NCQ test, added the ability to select the data type when testing, implemented scaling functions, updated the graphic design, and also included a digital signature and a new “about the program” dialog.

You can download the program from our file archive.

The hard drive, or data storage device, is one of the important components. The speed of your computer or laptop depends on the speed of its operation. In addition, the disk stores operating files system and user local files.

Factors Affected by Speed work hard disk:

• operating system loading speed;
• file copying speed;
• program launch speed.

HDD vs SSD: difference in speed

In modern computer technology, two types of drives are used:

• HDD (hard disk drive) - regular HDD;
• SSD ( solid-state drive) - solid state drive.

The performance of these types of drives varies enormously. For example, after SSD installation to my laptop operating system began to start in 9 seconds, instead of 45, which were before. To check the speed of your hard drive, you can choose one of many programs; I will talk about the best of them in this review.

What tests are available in the apps?

In addition to speed tests, there are programs with other drive checking functions:

• checking the disk for firmware errors;
• testing " " HDD or SSD;
• surface scanning to identify bad sectors;
• disk temperature monitoring;
• random block test;
• combined diagnostics (checking several indicators at once);

But we are interested in testing the speed of the hard drive in read and write mode. Therefore, we will tell you in more detail about the utilities that help display these indicators on the screen:

Programs for determining HDD speed

I’ll tell you about the paid and free functions of the utilities, their settings, cost and other basic indicators. The programs are optimally selected based on considerations of the best balance of functionality and clear settings.

Performancetest

1. The size of the test file used. The larger the size, the less impact of cached files.
2. The size of the data block used for reading or writing. Large blocks improve performance.
3. Sequential or random access (search, read and write).
4. Asynchronous and synchronous access.
5. Separation between read and write.
6. The speed of data exchange with the disk.

All test results can be displayed via GUI Performancetest.

When purchasing a license for Performancetest, the user additionally purchases:

• unlimited technical support via the Internet (by e-mail);
• updates and bug fixes if they occur;
• ability to export results to graphic images, text and web formats;
• use of scripts and command line;
• printout of results;
• removing the thirty-day limit on advanced tests.

You can quickly check the HDD speed as follows.

1. Select a sequential number of read and write cycles (the optimal number for the program is 4);
2. Select the optimal file size for testing (1 GB);
3. Select the drive to test;
4. Run the test in Performancetest.

The paid version costs $29.

AS SSD Benchmark

Test measures solid state performance SSD drives. The ssd speed test is carried out without using the OS cache. The program can be downloaded for free, but voluntary donations are welcome.

Testing a storage device via AS SSD Benchmark looks like this:

1. For testing, a 1 GB file is taken;
2. The disk access time is determined;
3. Test results are recorded;
4. The test is repeated three times;
5. The read speed and write speed are checked;
6. Average results are displayed.

In addition to general benchmarks, AS SSD Benchmark can conduct tests for copying and data compression.

CrystalDiskInfo

Utility for a comprehensive HDD speed test. It can be downloaded for free on the official website (see link below). The principle of operation is the same as that of the benchmark utilities described above. Paid versions CrystalDiskInfo includes enhanced technical support and additional testing options.

Checking disk speed in CrystalDiskInfo:

1. Determine the number of verification cycles (optimally 5);
2. Select the size of the verification file (1 GB is best);
3. Specify the disk to be checked;
4. Click on the "All" button.

CrystalDiskInfo can be downloaded in Russian, it is easy to use and works with all modern versions of Windows OS (7, 8, 10).

HD Tune Pro

An excellent program for checking hard drive speed, in no way inferior to those described above. Free version You can use it for 15 days, and then you will have to buy a code that allows you to further test the disk. The license cost is $34.95.

HD Tune Pro utility features:

• read and write speed test;
• conclusion detailed information about the disk via ;
• output scanning errors via log;
• safe deletion any data;
• file benchmark;
• cache test;
• HDD operation monitoring;
• support for external drives (checking status, temperature).

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Easy to use utility. Has a clear interface: help menu with detailed description Each function is combined in one window, allowing you to complete the setup in a few seconds. Test results are displayed in the main program window.

Testing in ATTO Disk Benchmark works like this:

1. Select a disk;
2. Specify the transfer size and duration;
3. We decide on access;
4. Click "Start".

At the end of the review, I would like to say that each of the speed testing programs is good in its own way. Some are easy to use, others are free to download. In any case, you should choose a benchmark utility for the HDD.